Soundscape is based on the proven model of user-created content that fuels large social, data-driven projects such as Wikipedia, and Waze [1]. We think of it as draw something for sounds.

As a content driven project, Soundscape provides the ability to visualize information about sounds and emotions, displaying information from trends in large social groups to personal information to each user on a map. We anticipate that large content contributors will comprise about 12% of our total user community, just as Wikipedia article authors and Waze [1] reporters are about 1% [2] of their respective user base, while the other 99% will be passive users who simply consume the content, not create it.

Content contributors will be individuals who are highly interested in the subject, motivated to help the mapping effort, whereas content consumers will be able to use the information for a variety of different applications, for example official city planners using the information to manage noise pollution in areas or account for effects of bus routes in residential neighborhoods.

This content will be shared in a manner similar to Waze [1] displayed directly on a map. Tags of different sounds and their accompanying emotions will be displayed on the map, just as traffic jams and road hazards are displayed on Waze [1].

The individual experience will resemble a user’s experience on Instagram – to the single user, Soundscape will provide another way to document their urban experiences with others by incorporating a new sense and opening up a new medium – recording sounds, and emotions and visualizing the information on a map.

We anticipate that only a small percentage of tagged sounds will be relevant and useful to a large-scale mapping effort, however sounds that receive many tags from the same area will reflect the actual state of urban sounds.

1 .Waze is a free social mobile app that enables drivers to build and use live maps, real-time traffic updates and turn-by-turn navigation for an optimal commute

2. (The 1% rule states that the number of people who create content on the Internet represents approximately of the people actually viewing that content)